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Perhaps you don’t have enough room, or time, for a full-size garden. An herb garden is an easy way to dabble in gardening and can be done on a window sill, porch or anywhere where you can stick a pot. Planting an herb garden is a good project for young kids, as it can be done in about 10 minutes — just find a container, pour in the potting soil, dig a little hole for each plant, and gently plop it in. Voila! And unlike seeds, there’s no wait time before you can use the plants.

I have a rectangular planter on my deck rail, for easy dinner-time access from the kitchen. A larger pot on the deck holds extra rosemary (purportedly a natural mosquito-repellant) and several varieties of mint for those refreshing summer cocktails, er, beverages.

If you want to make sure you’re getting organic herb plants, take a look at the farmers market. Many farmers are offering herbs this spring as they wait for their other crops to come in. We picked out sage, thyme and rosemary (above) from Medina & Sons this past weekend at the West End Alexandria market — the Falls Church farmers market has several plant vendors, including our ecoganic CSA Potomac Vegetable Farms.

Check out this Middle Eastern Stuffed Pita recipe from Aviva at PBS Kitchen Explorers for a tasty way to use your home-grown mint.

What herbs are your kids growing? Do they eat them?

“Worm Wednesday” is a new feature here to highlight the enthusiasm kids have for gardening.  If you’d like to contribute, send me a picture and description or story of your garden to foodietots@gmail.com, and you could see your garden here on Foodie Tots!

Earlier this spring, I picked the boy up from school on a rainy evening. As we left the building, with a classmate and their teacher, we saw dozens of worms squiggling through puddles on the sidewalk. The kids quickly started scooping up the worms to move them to higher ground, cheered on by their teacher while the other mother and I cringed. Now admittedly their teacher’s reaction was better than mine — embracing their curiosity and seizing the opportunity to learn something.

Our adventure in organic gardening is forcing me to develop a more, uh, accepting response to bugs. Worms of course are one of the beneficial creatures to the garden, so they’re a little easier to love than some others.

When the boy and I set out to prep our garden plot for planting, we uncovered two big, healthy-looking earthworms. We let them scurry to safety before planting our pea seeds. A little later, the boy spotted the neighbor boy in his yard, and rushed to the fence calling out, “Guess what? My mommy and me found two worms in our garden! That means our soil is really healthy for the plants!”

“Worm Wednesday” is a new feature here to highlight the enthusiasm kids have for gardening. I’ve already asked a few other family gardeners to share — but if you’d like to contribute, send me a picture and description or story of your garden to foodietots@gmail.com, and you could see your garden here on Foodie Tots!

I’ve been spoiled to live by year-round markets, but my heart still skips a beat at the first spotting of bright green stalks of asparagus after a long, cold winter. This past weekend I lucked out and found the season’s first Northern Neck strawberries, too — much to the Foodie Tot’s joy. (Yes, he did a dance after peering into my market bag.)

But May brings the opening of many of the area’s seasonal markets — including Fairfax County markets, the Alexandria West End market (Sundays, 9am-1pm — **note, opening has been delayed until next Sunday, May 8), the FreshFarm Crystal City market (Tuesdays, 3-7m), and others. The FreshFarm Market by the White House opens next Thursday (3-7pm), and one of my favorites, West Virginia’s Bigg Riggs Farm, is joining the market this year. (You can also find them at Crystal City and Alexandria’s Old Town and Upper King Street Markets — and they’ve had ramps the past couple weeks.)

If you’re headed out in search of asparagus this weekend, Northern Virginia magazine offers some pointers on how to choose and prepare them. Me, I roast them in olive oil and sea salt for about 8-10 minutes (400 degrees), until just tender enough for the baby to gnaw on.

That’s right, the Foodie Bebe has already savored her first asparagus. The boy’s fancy for it comes and goes. (Though I did discover he likes it better if I pan roast it in the cast iron skillet with butter instead of olive oil, and a little parmesan cheese never hurts.) Do your kids like it?

I confess, I’m excited about the Royal wedding. My great grandmother grew up in England, after all, emigrating to the US as a teenager. (Technically, my grandfather’s family also had British origins, but as they came to America in the 1600s I think that’s stretching things a bit.) So I plan to set the alarm early on Friday, sip tea out of my great-great-grandmother’s china and enjoy a scone while watching the festivities. These rhubarb scones are the perfect blend of sweet, tart and spicy to wake you up. Too many rhubarb recipes drown rhubarb’s pleasant tang in sugar or cover it up entirely with strawberries — these go in the other direction, boosting the spice with little bits of crystallized ginger.

Recipe: Rhubarb Ginger Scones
adapted from Epicurious

Ingredients:

• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon organic cane sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chopped rhubarb (about 2 stalks)
• 2 tablespoons candied ginger, finely chopped
• 1 1/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream

Happy Earth Day! I was going to write with some Foodie Tots tips for going green — you know, plant a garden, join a CSA, go meatless, yada yada yada, but I’ve got some other exciting news instead. The Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food & Agriculture — an awesome new nonprofit effort launched by local Neighborhood Restaurant Group — is just dollars away from raising the necessary funds to launch DC’s first ever Mobile Food Market. Check out the video, and if you’re so moved, consider chipping in a buck or two to get the bus on the road! (As of this post, they just need $90 dollars in the next 24 hours — so close!)

mobile market on kickstarter

I am so excited about what Arcadia has in store and look forward to visiting the farm later this spring for a first-hand look.